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User blog:TJET President/ALT/JTE Seminar 26th November 2018 Report
'ALT/JTE Seminar Report- Was it useful?' This is a report from TJET president Hayley Kendal. This report is focused on the seminar which took place on the 26th November and specifically for private schools and 1st years. ''This is a report based on her own experience and the opinions shared by other JETS she had spoken to. '' 'On the 26th of November 2018, Tokyo JETS from private schools headed to Ichigaya for a day of teacher training.' 'The training included:' * 'Developing student speaking skills' * 'Approaches to practical grammar teaching' * 'Creating a present-practice-produce lesson' * 'Concept discussion and application workshop' 'The first session focused on activities for the development of student speaking skills. We worked in groups with our JTEs and took part in interactive exercises.' 'We had the opportunity to discuss the teaching methods used in classes and our expectations, with our JTEs. It allowed us to express how our lessons had been so far, what was effective and what needed improving. It also gave us a chance to reflect, compromise, and plan for future classes. Overall I felt that the speaker was engaging and the information he provided was useful. ' 'In Workshop 2, our aim was to gain an understanding of teaching grammar. We also had the opportunity to design practical grammar teaching materials for our own lessons. I found this workshop effective as it involved a more hands-on and interactive approach. This made the subject matter more interesting and exciting. We used a card chaining method which proved useful, as well as discussing the importance of body language and 'hesitence devices' such as "Umm...", "Well...", "Is that so...?". The body language activity, I found, was most enjoyable and I would like to use this idea in future lessons.' 'After a 1 hour lunch break, we moved onto Workshop 3- Creating a PPP (Present-practise-produce) lesson. This, I'm afraid to say, is when people started to noticeably lose interest. The workshop consisted of listening to a presentation and looking at photocopied pages of textbooks. We were then asked to create our own PPP lessons, but the majority of people were unsure of what was asked of them, as instructions were not clear. I personally felt confused and underwhelmed. Overuse of abbreviations and studying photocopies of textbooks, proved ineffective.' 'Workshop 4a focused on concept discussion and application. We were asked to create our own lesson plans using course book pages as guides. In groups, we then shared our plans and gave constructive criticism to each other. I feel that some aspects of this workshop were effective, but again, looking at worksheet after worksheet proved uninteresting and I feel that a more interactive and fun method could have been used instead. This could have inspired JETS more and made the topic more enjoyable.' 'Overall I feel the seminar started strong and effective, but perhaps people felt unenthusiastic towards the second half of the day. I think the workshops could have been more engaging and speakers were naive to their audience. They did not build their lectures to the audience effectively as many JETS were unfamiliar with the grammar points and terminology. While perhaps unavoidable, many of the workshops were quite specific in nature and a significant number of the audience members come from situations where they will never have to make lesson plans or will not reproduce lessons from textbooks. Consequently, much of the seminar material will not be relevant to these people.' 'So what would make an effective seminar? More interactive workshops and group activities. Clearer instructions and a wider variety of lesson plan ideas. Perhaps JETs are divisible into 3 distinct categories- those who make lessons from scratch, those who work from textbooks and those who act as ‘human tape recorders’. Potentially these groups could work in separate workshops, tailored to their needs. More involvement between JETs and their JTE’s could prove effective too.' 'What do you think?' * How do you think the seminar was? * What was your favourite activity? * Which workshop did you find the most effective? * How do you think it could have been improved? ''' '''Leave your comments below or contact the TJET team or your PA! Category:Blog posts